The Milagro Beanfield War
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Robert Redford
Ruben Blades
Richard Bradford
Sonia Braga
Julie Carmen
James Gammon
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
A New Mexican town rallies behind a farmer who unintentionally irrigates his land with the water supply of a rich entrepreneur.
Director
Robert Redford
Cast
Ruben Blades
Richard Bradford
Sonia Braga
Julie Carmen
James Gammon
Melanie Griffith
John Heard
Carlos Riquelme
Daniel Stern
Adelita Sandoval
Sam Vlahos
Chick Vennera
Gene Ornales
Larry Boyd
Victoria Plata
Nat Shipman
Marcos L Martinez
Ronald G Joseph
Michael Gomez
M. Emmet Walsh
Federico Roberto
Donald Salazar
Phil Mead
Rudy Fernandez
Eddie G Baros
Ruby Marchant
Consuelo Luz
Reynaldo Cantu
Margo Cutler
Roberto Mondragon
Basil Hoffman
Tony Genaro
Eloy Vigil
Mario Arrambide
Christopher Walken
Patricio Chavez
Natividad Vacio
Juanita Nichols
China Bell
Frederick Lopez
Marco A Oviedo
Arnold Burns
Eva Cantu
Ishmael A Avila
Bonnie Apodaca
Jimmy Martinez
Ronald C Jacobs
Astrea Romero
Cipriano Vigil
Leandro Cordova
Pablo Trujillo
Ron Frazier
Cletus Tafoya
Alfredo Romero
Lynda Witz
Jerry Hardin
Waldo Cantu
Olga Merediz
Albert Morin
Robert Carricart
Douglas Yanez
Trinidad Silva
Eric Treisman
Freddy Fender
Crew
Julie Adams
Dede Allen
Joe Aubel
Craig B Ayers
Roy Barnes
Cassandra Barrere
Michael Barrere
Donah Bassett
Eric Beason
Sarah Black
Else Blangsted
Steve Boyd
Billy Brashier
Melissa Bretherton
Reynaldo Cantu
Joseph Caramico
Charles Carlsen
William Carruth
Lucy Cavallo
Crew Chamberlain
Lucy Coldsnow-smith
Jack Couffer
Jim Day
Michael Dellheim
Felito Denavaraez
Mary Lou Devlin
Shirley Dolle
Jim Ealy
Moctesuma Esparza
Chris Espeset
William F Ferson
Gregg Fienberg
Gordon K Fletcher
Nancy Foy
Nancy Frazen
Stanley Frazen
Trisha B Gallaher
Rodney Gallegos
David Glazer
Anthony Goldschmidt
Antoinette Gordon
Celeste Gose
Robbie Greenberg
Dave Grusin
Conrad W. Hall
George Hanson
Barbara Harris
Brian P Hauck
James Hegedus
James Hegedus
Michael Helfand
Gary J Hendler
Beccie Hilliard
Shelly Rae Hinton
Tom Hoerber
Dale Holmen
Mary Ann Holt
Spike Hooper
David Horton
Matthew Iadarola
Sally Jackson
Peter Jamison
Daniel S. Jimenez
Keith A Jones
Tom Joslin
Rick Kahana
Marilyn Keach
Nikita Knatz
David A Koeppel
Leon Lebow
Kenny Lee
Gary Liddiard
Frederic Lopez
Bill Maldonado
Mary Jo Markey
Elliot Marks
Willie O Martinez
Mel Maxwell
James J Mccarthy
Timothy P Mcdonald
Dick Mckenzie
Jack Mclean
Sammye Meadows
Joe Mendoza
Carla Meyer
Jim Miller
Robbi Miller
Michael Minkler
Steven R. Molen
Leonard Monfredo
Charles Mulvehill
Charles Myers
John Nichols
John Nichols
Kim Nolan
Patrick R Norris
David P O'brien
Kathy O'rear
David Ochoa
Kaaren F Ochoa
Ralph Ortega
Richard L Oswald
Tony Paolone
James Parks
Angel Perez
Donnette Perkins
Victoria Plata
Bernie Pollack
Tom Ramsey
Karen Rasch
Robert Redford
Mike Reedy
Josh Rich
Billy Don Riley
Angel Romero
Kay Rose
Thomas Roysden
Paul Russell
Teri R Salazar
Nick Scarano
Lauren Schaffer
Jack Schrader
Ellen Segal
Ralph Segura
Michael Selph
Vince Sembera
Chuck Sharp
Chester Slomka
Phil Smith
Tom Snyder
Tim Staubs
Thomas Thanangadan
Mike Thomas
John Toll
Pablo Valdez
David S. Ward
Tom Ward
Jessica Tice Warner
Paul Warschilka
James E Webb
Brent White
Jim Wilkey
David Wisnievitz
Butch Wolf
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Wins
Best Score
Articles
The Milagro Beanfield War
In today's climate of dwindling resources and increasing environmental awareness, it's not insignificantly a film about water rights, about a community finding itself with a few assists from nature, whether in the form of a beanfield maintained by a stubborn holdout (Chick Vennera) against developers' bulldozers, or a timely gust of wind that circulates sequestered copies of a muckraking newspaper whose entire press run is about to be put to the torch. As a pushy developer (Richard Bradford), pockets stuffed with compliant pols as much as with cash, prepares to turn a spacious but mostly parched corner of northern New Mexico into what he boasts will be the state's largest leisure time development, it's a question of whose water is it anyway? And beyond that, will it just be another chapter in the long history of exploitation of Hispanica by America?
Here's where those angels come in. The Milagro Beanfield War establishes a tone of buoyant magic realism as an old sombrero-wearing campesino (Robert Carricart) dances out of the night in slo-mo, concertina in hand, through the dawn and into a one-room house for his daily pre-breakfast dialogue with its -- and the town's -- oldest inhabitant, Amarante (Carlos Riquelme). Amarante is the conduit for the culture and the ancient beliefs that have sustained that culture through centuries of impoverishment, or would, if the present generation stayed linked to it, drawing upon it for strength. Sometimes it needs to withstand the well-meant efforts of its friends. These range from John Heard's battle-weary social activist, who'd retire from the fray if Sonia Braga's local tempesta would let him, to Daniel Stern's visiting sociologist from NYU, adding his good-natured bungling to the mix.
But mostly it's Bradford's goons, more inherently savage than their boss, who are prepared to bring lethal force to bear. It's not that they're devoted to the proposed golf course whose creation will result in the bulldozing of the small-fry farmer's beanfield; they're mostly just bullies who get off on throwing their weight around, especially when they feel they've been sanctioned by bought legislators. The exception is Christopher Walken's Kyril Montana, a dirty tricks specialist from the state capital, recycling the bounty hunter he played in Heaven's Gate (1980) and blending it with the kind of otherworldly psychosis he has made so uniquely his own. Can an old man with an old Colt .45 Peacemaker, loaded with bullets he traded food stamps to get, possibly be a match for him? For that matter, what about Vennera's farmer, Joe Mondragon, who out of desperation opens the developer's turned-off water tap that has all Joe's people dying from thirst? They're such Davids and the Goliaths are such Goliaths that you aren't inclined to begrudge them a little supernatural help. The developers have a lot of money, law and bulldozers. The locals have a little mojo, a lot of passivity connected to self-preservation, and even more waffling and squabbling among themselves.
Yet it's a source of strength that the script fashioned from John Nichols' 1974 novel doesn't lean too hard on the magic, even as it sensitively and miraculously taps into the intangible qualities of the parched land surrounded by magnificent purple mountains (it was filmed in Truchas, NM, with a kind of Southwest authenticity no California locale could give it). Everything that happens is rooted in the real world, nothing defies the laws of physics. The film is quasi-magical in its mood, but mysticism is never unduly pressed into service. And the finished product reflects the respect Redford obviously brought to the land and its people. They're activists only reluctantly, but they're not militant, much less warlike. They head into the clash with dread, knowing that however morally right they may be, they're on the wrong side of the legal system.
Redford's biggest genuflection to the culture comes in his decision to tell the story from their perspective. It doesn't pretend to be anything but that of a simpatico outsider. His surrogate like novelist Nichols' is to be found in Heard's Anglo civil rights lawyer turned small town newspaper publisher and commercial printer. The matter-of-fact diversity of the local culture is reflected in Redford's casting of Panamanian Ruben Blades as the sheriff sanely and knowledgably trying to keep a lid on things, Brazilian Sonia Braga as the local firebrand, Tex-Mex Freddy Fender as the let's-just-get-along mayor, and the beguiling Mexican film veteran, Riquelme, making his Hollywood debut here at 75.
The intimate scale of the particulars of these people who belong to the land as much as the land belongs to them sits well against the spacious canopies of sky. It's part of the charm of this ensemble piece whose amiability is more apparent than its complex weave. Redford, alluding to its magic realism and extravagant arcs of belief, has compared it to the writing of Gabriel Garcia Marquez. The filmic comparison that most readily springs to mind is the postwar Italian wretched masses' communal ascension to a better life in Vittorio De Sica's even more unknown and undeservedly under-appreciated Miracle in Milan (1951). The not-so-secret ingredient in Redford's enchilada-flavored peasant uprising? Something about governing without the consent of the governed, especially the economically governed.
Producers: Moctesuma Esparza, Robert Redford
Director: Robert Redford
Screenplay: David Ward; John Nichols (screenplay and novel)
Cinematography: Robbie Greenberg
Art Direction: Brandy Alexander, Joe Aubel, Pamela Marcotte
Music: Dave Grusin
Film Editing: Dede Allen, Jim Miller
Cast: Ruben Blades (Sheriff Bernabe Montoya), Richard Bradford (Ladd Devine), Sonia Braga (Ruby Archuleta), Julie Carmen (Nancy Mondragon), James Gammon (Horsethief Shorty), Melanie Griffith (Flossie Devine), John Heard (Charlie Bloom), Carlos Riquelme (Amarante Cordova), Daniel Stern (Herbie Platt), Chick Vennera (Joe Mondragon), Christopher Walken (Kyril Montana), Freddy Fender (Mayor Sammy Cantu), Tony Genaro (Nick Rael), Jerry Hardin (Emerson Capps), Ronald G. Joseph (Jerry G), Mario Arrambide (Carl).
C-118m. Letterboxed. Closed Captioning.
by Jay Carr
The Milagro Beanfield War
Quotes
Trivia
Miscellaneous Notes
Released in United States Spring March 18, 1988
Released in United States on Video September 15, 1988
Released in United States 1988
Shown at Munich Film Festival June 25-July 3, 1988.
Shown at Birmingham Film & Television Festival September-October 1988.
Completed shooting November 24, 1986.
Began shooting August 6, 1986.
Spanish language version available.
Released in United States Spring March 18, 1988
Released in United States on Video September 15, 1988
Released in United States 1988 (Shown at Munich Film Festival June 25-July 3, 1988.)
Released in United States 1988 (Shown at Birmingham Film & Television Festival September-October 1988.)